Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 28, 2018; 24(36): 4178-4185
Published online Sep 28, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i36.4178
Mechanism of combined use of vitamin D and puerarin in anti-hepatic fibrosis by regulating the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway
Gan-Rong Huang, Si-Jun Wei, Yan-Qiang Huang, Wei Xing, Lu-Yao Wang, Ling-Ling Liang
Gan-Rong Huang, Yan-Qiang Huang, Wei Xing, Lu-Yao Wang, Ling-Ling Liang, Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Baise 533000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Si-Jun Wei, Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise 533000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Author contributions: Huang GR and Wei SJ contributed equally to this work; Huang YQ, Wang LY and Liang LL performed the majority of the experiments; Xing W performed the experimental design, writing and analysis.
Supported by Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Universities in Guangxi (Guangxi Education Research), No. [2014] 6.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The manuscript has been revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Wei Xing, MD, Professor, Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, School of Basic Medical Sciences, 98 Urban-Rural Road, Baise 533000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. 116895009@qq.com
Telephone: 18907767511
Received: June 5, 2018
Peer-review started: June 5, 2018
First decision: June 21, 2018
Revised: July 30, 2018
Accepted: August 1, 2018
Article in press: August 1, 2018
Published online: September 28, 2018
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Hepatic fibrosis is seriously endangering the safety of life. At present, there is no ideal way to treat hepatic fibrosis. The combination of vitamin D and puerarin can improve the effects of anti-hepatic fibrosis, but the mechanism is not clear. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the mechanism of the combined use of vitamin D and puerarin in the treatment of hepatic fibrosis, so as to improve the theoretical basis for the treatment of hepatic fibrosis.

Research motivation

The combination of vitamin D and puerarin can improve the effect of anti-hepatic fibrosis, but its mechanism is not clear. The Wnt/β-catenin pathway is closely related to liver fibrosis. In this study, we found that vitamin D and puerarin are closely related to the regulation of Wnt/β-catenin pathway in hepatic fibrosis, which provided a useful reference for those in clinical practice.

Research objectives

The research aimed to reveal the protective mechanism of the combined use of vitamin D and puerarin in the progression of hepatic fibrosis induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4).

Research methods

In this study, a Wistar rat model of hepatic fibrosis was constructed by CCl4. Vitamin D combined with puerarin was used in the treatment of hepatic fibrosis rats, and the liver pathology and the genes related to the Wnt/β-catenin pathway were detected. The protective mechanism of the combined use of vitamin D and puerarin in the progression of hepatic fibrosis was explored at the molecular level.

Research results

The research demonstrated that CCl4 greatly increased the HA level in blood and Hyp level in the rat liver. CCl4 caused the deposition of collagen fibers in the liver of the rats. Vitamin D and puerarin can both reduce the HA level in blood and Hyp level in liver of the rats, thus greatly decreasing the amount of collagen fibers in the liver. The combined use of vitamin D and puerarin most significantly reduced the various damage indices, and alleviated the deposition of collagen fibers, which proved that the two drugs had synergistic effects.

Research conclusions

The combined application of vitamin D and puerarin is capable to alleviating the CCl4-induced hepatic fibrosis of rats.

Research perspectives

We have learned to induce an animal model of hepatic fibrosis and study the drug effects by the animal model, but also because we were not skilled enough in the experimental technique and spent more time doing repetitive work. The future research direction is to explore the prevention and treatment measures of hepatic fibrosis. The drug targets will be studied by transcriptome, proteomics and other methods.